I'm about halfway through Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Solow and Justman, and it's just not what I'm looking for. I know that nothing is as good as the DS9 Companion in terms of quality, but I'm hoping for something that gives me details about the writing and production of the actual episodes of TOS instead of studio politics. Any suggestions, whether official or unofficial books, are appreciated.
TOS Reference Book Question
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Try The Making of Star Trek by Stephen Whitfield, The Trouble With Tribbles by David Gerrold (the complete story behind the making of the episode, from Gerrold's early unproduced pitches through the whole writing and production process), and City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison (lots of studio politics stuff, but you can also see how the story evolved from its original and very different form).
estrea said:
It's not the greatest, but you might find it interesting -- that is if you can find a copy. The World of Star Trek: The Show the Network Could Not Kill! by David Gerrold. I bought a copy of it when it first came out in 1973 and refer to it often. Good luck!
"The World of Star Trek" is a fairly common find in large second hand bookshops; it went into many, many reprints over the years. Chunky MMPB. Early printings had a white cover but it's easier to find in the black cover. The final chapters predict many ways to make TOS better (ie. more believable, storywise) and Roddenberry incorporated many of these into TNG.
In the lead-up to ST III, Gerrold revamped the book in trade paperback and added new chapters, but this is a much harder find.
The companion volume - on the making of "The Trouble With Tribbles" (red cover) - is sometimes fairly easy to find second hand although it, too, and is also long out of print. However, it's available for free download as an eBook from David Gerrold's website, IIRC.
"The Making of ST" (Whitfield w/ Roddenberry; most commonly silver cover) came out after the second season of TOS. It's always bizarre/interesting to note that its episode guide is only two seasons long.
For a fan view of a week filming "Turnabout Intruder", the final episode, try Joan Winston's second chapter in the iconic "Star Trek Lives!" by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston.
^ Gerrold's Tribbles is available at BenBella Books' website as a free .pdf download:
BenBella Books: David Gerrold
BenBella Books: David Gerrold
Gerrold's TWoST is a very interesting read. Especially when you can see some the things he was saying in the early to mid 1970's have since shown up in the later incarnations of ST, especially TNG.
His "making of" Tribbles book is very entertaining, also. And informative to follow him through the creative process of writing an episode of television.
No, Gerrold himself incorporated them into TNG, since he was part of its initial development team.
Oh, no, you've got to get The Making of Star Trek. If you want a detailed exploration of the production and creation of ST, that's an absolutely invaluable text. Indeed, it's one of the best books ever written about the production process of any TV show. Definitely World of ST is worth having too, and Tribbles is great as a detailed account of the development and creation of a single episode (though from the writer's side rather than the production side). And I'd also recommend The Star Trek Compendium by Allan Asherman, which is a good episode guide with a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes material about the development and casting of the show and the production details of specific episodes (especially if you can find a copy of the first edition, which has material removed from later editions, such as lists of the actors' previous credits -- although maybe that's not as necessary now in the age of IMDb). But TMoST is a must-read for anyone interested in the production process of TOS.
Gerrold was invited to be part of TNG's development team because of his outspoken views on how to improve TOS, as recorded in "The World of ST" - and "The Galactic Whirlpool". Thus my statement that Roddenberry incorporated Gerrold's ideas.
^^Yeah, but phrasing it that way implies that Roddenberry did it all himself. Gerrold actually wrote the first draft of the TNG bible; Roddenberry then revised it. I know you know that, but other people reading this thread may not know that, and I don't want them to get the wrong impression.
Except these two are contradictory. Either Roddenberry invited Gerrold to be part of the team or he incorporated Gerrold's ideas. To do both would be, well, redundant.
And, as Christopher said, saying Roddenberry incorporated Gerrold's ideas -- besides being, y'know, wrong -- makes it sound like Roddenberry did it all himself, and he really really didn't, despite his manipulation of reality (and violation of WGA rules) to give himself sole creator credit of TNG.
(The rule he violated was that, because she cowrote the pilot with him, D.C. Fontana should've gotten cocreator credit on the show.)
Indeed, my understanding was that Fontana was the sole scriptwriter on the original 90-minute version of the pilot, with Roddenberry then tacking on the Q subplot when it was decided to expand it to 2 hours. So Fontana was responsible for the majority of the pilot.
I'm going to quibble with you slightly, Christopher.
It's more accurate to say that Gerrold was part of Roddenberry's initial development team.
Roddenberry was, in fact, the fourth producer approached to create Star Trek: The Next Generation. After Harve Bennett (who was happy with the films) and Nimoy both said no, Paramount approached Greg Strangis to create a new Star Trek television series. Whatever Strangis created, it got far enough for Roddenberry to rail against it (as he had railed against every one of Harve Bennett's films), as one of Roddenberry's memos on the project is reprinted in Star Trek Creator.
How did Roddenberry get involved, and Strangis shown the door? I've never seen anything on that. At a guess, Roddenberry saw the writing on the wall, that Paramount was going to forge ahead without him, and he found some chit he could call in to get himself dealt back into the game.
Did anything of Strangis' work survive? No idea, as I don't know that his proposal has ever surfaced publicly. I've long thought, just from the way credits shook down in season one, that Data was a Strangis creation that carried over into Roddenberry's series, but I want to stress that's entirely a speculation on my part.
The short of it? Gerrold wasn't part of the initial development team, as he wasn't part of Strangis's team. He was, however, part of Roddenberry's later production team.
Just endeavoring to be accurate.
KRAD said:
Except these two are contradictory. Either Roddenberry invited Gerrold to be part of the team or he incorporated Gerrold's ideas. To do both would be, well, redundant.
So redundant that David Gerrold (and DC Fontana) ended up suing Roddenberry for co-creator status because so much of his stuff was absorbed into TNG. It was settled out of court, so no one can discuss the amounts received. All we do know is that the onscreen credits didn't have to be reworded.
To me, Christopher's comment earlier makes it seem like Gerrold slipped his ideas into TNG when no one was looking. I'm just saying that Gerrold's influence over TNG was over many years - including convention chats with GR, and panels at the big LA conventions - long before his official involvement. He had nothing to do with "ST: Phase II" or "Questor", but TNG is clearly a melding of Gerrold's ideas for improving TOS (TWoST), elements from TAS, plus development ideas of Roddenberry's from "Phase II" and "The Questor Tapes".
Roddenberry, as executive producer, incorporated these ideas into TNG by setting up the production team he had.
I just cannot agree with that phrasing. Roddenberry alone did not incorporate those ideas. The team assembled by Roddenberry incorporated those ideas -- and given his poor health at the time, I doubt Roddenberry himself played anywhere near the most active role in the process.
If that were the case, he wouldn't have been just an "executive consultant" on the movies following the first one. Paramount owned the series, not Roddenberry, so it wasn't up to him.
